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This morning, in light of Weinergate, Slate.com reposted an article from Feb. 2010 called, In Defense of Sex Addicts. Author Hanna Rosin, in originally discussing the Tiger Woods sex scandal, cites a couple of authors who have waited for this “sex addiction” thing to blow up. Her general claim is as follows:

Not so long ago, there was no easy way at all to publicly shame a celebrity pig or even any ordinary pig. The term sex addict does some of that work, and its introduction into the psychiatric idiom could be considered an important moment in feminist history. Suddenly, certain brutish behaviors that used to be overlooked were exiled as abnormal. And in the clinical literature, the word promiscuous came to primarily describe not hysterical women but rather predatory men.

I see this as saying, Hey, men with mistresses and all that jazz, no need to feel bad. You were just a sex addict. This seems to go against everything I think the feminist movement stands for : creating equal rights and promoting respect for women and humanity as a whole. In fact, the creation of the term “sex addiction” actually hurts the feminist cause. Continue reading →

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It would be easy to file this under the category of “men behaving badly,” to dismiss it as a testosterone-induced, hard-wired connection between sex and power (powerful men attract women, powerful women repel men). And some might conclude that busy working women don’t have time to cheat. (“While I’m at home changing diapers, I just couldn’t conceive of it,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat, once said.)

But there may be something else at work: Research points to a substantial gender gap in the way women and men approach running for office. Women have different reasons for running, are more reluctant to do so and, because there are so few of them in politics, are acutely aware of the scrutiny they draw — all of which seems to lead to differences in the way they handle their jobs once elected.

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I make no bones about being an Anthony Weiner fan. I applauded him when he stood up for reproductive access. I cried with laughter at his Click and Clack impressions during his house speech defending NPR. Anthony Weiner was the kind of politician that I could get behind. He was real, he was witty, and he wasn’t afraid to call on people’s bullshit. Why am I saying “was” – he still is all of those things. Except that now he has been widely shamed for his poor decision making skills and has proved, very publicly, how real he actually is.

Let me start with saying that even though I was reallly hoping it wasn’t actually him doing the tweeting, I don’t have much of a problem with Anthony Weiner’s actions. Aside from the fact that he is married*, Weiner’s internet actions crossed no boundaries of the law, and the explicit conversations he was having were completely consensual – you can read some of the contents here:

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So, here’s the thing. Full disclosure. I was born out of wedlock. At the age of 17, my parents, both of whom were still in high school, had a newborn daughter to take care of. Plenty of people told my mother that she should have an abortion or give me up for adoption, but she didn’t. She had the support of my father (they married the following year and are still happily together) and her family, and here I am. Two more kids later and my family is incredibly close — I couldn’t be happier.

I realize that this isn’t always the case, and I’m sure we’ve beat a lot of statistics. But you know what? Regardless of the numbers, my mother made a choice. Well, she made several. And so did my father. They chose to have unprotected sex, my mother chose to keep me, they chose to get married upon turning 18 because they were—and still are—madly in love.

But if anyone—man or woman, in love or not—wants to have sex before marriage, that’s their choice. Having a baby when you’re a teenager or a single parent might not be the most glamorous thing, but since when is life about glamour? Life is about the choices you make and doing what’s best for you. Marriage may still be something important in our society, but sex is a primal instinct & desire and there’s no way around it. It’s going to happen, so maybe we should be a little more open about it and teach the younger generation about it instead of bitching and shaming people who are just being human.

Yeah, I’m talking to you, Huckabee. You said this on Monday (thanks, WaPo):

“You know Michael, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine. But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock [sic].”

[Ed note: Many people like Mr. Huckabee love to shame women for having sex out of wedlock, but they don’t want them to have access to abortion, or access to health care, or access to food stamps, or access to anything, really, that they need to get by. So if you want to acknowledge, Mr. Huckabee, that single moms and their children need help, great. But have the morals to stand behind them and actually give them some goddamn help.]

Apparently, this was an interview with Michael Medved, who responded to Portman’s statement that her fiancé, Benjamin Millepied, gave her the most wonderful role in life by saying he “didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring!” Yeah. Sure. Because a shiny piece of jewelry and marriage are all women have to look forward to in life. Gag me.

And now, the Huckster is backtracking. Oh, you didn’t mean to insult Natalie Portman and all of the single mothers out there? Well, you insulted a hell of a lot more people than that. Women who have sex before marriage run the risk of revealing their actions publicly if they happen to get pregnant. What about men? They show no outward signs that they’ve bumped uglies. And what, if a woman gets pregnant and wants to keep the baby (not that you think abortions should happen anyway), she should automatically marry the man?

I disagree. I don’t think that any of that bullshit is true, and I don’t think that Natalie Portman’s pregnancy is glorifying having children out of wedlock. I think that Natalie Portman’s pregnancy is inspiring as hell to a lot of people. Here’s this incredibly intelligent, talented, generous, and funny woman with an Ivy League education, an Oscar, an amazing career, who is engaged to the love of her life and about to become a mother. Hot damn, if that doesn’t encourage people to reach for their dreams and embrace their life choices, I don’t know what does.

My mother might not have an Oscar and she didn’t go to Harvard, but she made her own choices, dealt with her decisions, and took life as it came at her. She’s brave and strong and a hell of a woman. (Happy birthday, Mama! Thank you, for the choices you made.) I’m glad that she had the freedom to make those choices and my parents did what made them happiest, rather than simply getting married because I came along.

Not everyone has the resources and support that my mother had. As my smart and lovely friend Jeneice said, when sharing this story with me:

“Also, his stuff about most single moms being uneducated and poor isn’t…because of us glorifying wedlock. That’s a bigger problem rooted in so much more than women running around and having sex. Maybe we should look at why these populations are so uneducated and single. Maybe we should work to provide them with more education, more assistance, and/or something other than abstinence-only education instead of using them for your benefit when you want to shame others. But nooooooooooooooooo. Why don’t you work to fix the problem, Mr. Huckabee, instead of trying to shame a woman who can handle it because of her job and education? GAH. GAH. BRAIIIINNNNN. Ugh.”